ACCORDING TO PLATO. 603 



said to act as if they reasoned, rather than as if they understood. The verb understand is 

 especially applied to man as distinguished from animals. Mr Coleridge tells a tale from Huber, 

 of certain bees which, to prevent a piece of honey from falling, balanced it by their weight, while 

 they built a pillar to support it. They did this by Instinct, not understanding what they did ; 

 men, doing the same, would have understood what they were doing. Our Translation of the 

 Scriptures, in making it the special distinction of man and animals, that he has Understanding 

 and they have not, speaks quite consistently with good philosophy and good English. 



Mr Coleridge's object in his speculations is nearly the same as Plato's ; namely, to declare 

 that there is a truth of a higher kind than can be obtained by mere reasoning ; and also to 

 claim, as portions of this higher truth, certain fundamental doctrines of Morality. Among these, 

 Mr Coleridge places the Authority of Conscience, and Plato, the Supreme Good. Mr Coleridge 

 also holds, as Plato held, that the Reason of man, in its highest and most comprehensive form, is 

 a portion of a Supreme and Universal Reason ; and leads to Truth, not in virtue of its special 

 attributes in each person, but by its own nature. 



Many of the opinions which are combined with these doctrines, both in Plato and in Coleridge, 

 are such as we should, I think, find it impossible to accept, upon a careful philosophical examina- 

 tion of them ; but on these I shall not here dwell. 



I will only further observe, that if any one were to doubt whether the term Nous is rightly 

 rendered Intuitive Reason, we may find proof of the propriety of such a rendering in the remark- 

 able discussion concerning the Intellectual Virtues, which we have in the Sixth Book of the 

 Nicomachean Ethics. It can hardly be questioned that Aristotle had in his mind, in writing 

 that passage, the doctrines of Plato, as expounded in the passage just examined, and similar 

 passages. Aristotle there says that there are five Intellectual Virtues, or Faculties by which the 

 Mind aims at Truth in asserting or denying : — namely, Art. Science, Prudence, Wisdom, Nous. 

 In this enumeration, passing over Art, Prudence, and Wisdom, as virtues which are mainly 

 concerned with practical life, we have, in the region of speculative Truth, a distinction propounded 

 between Science and Nous : and this distinction is further explained (c. 6) by the remarks that 

 Science reasons from Principles ; and that these Principles cannot be given by Science, because 

 Science reasons from them ; nor by Art, nor Prudence, for these are conversant with matters 

 contingent, not with matters demonstrable ; nor can the First Principles of the Reasonings of 

 Science be given by Wisdom, for Wisdom herself has often to reason from Principles. Therefore 

 the First Principles of Demonstrative Reasoning must be given by a peculiar Faculty, Nous. 

 As we have said, Intuitive Reason is the most appropriate English term for this Faculty. 



The view thus given of that higher kind of Knowledge which Plato and A ristotle place above 

 ordinary Science, as being the Knowledge of and Faculty of learning First Principles, will enable 

 us to explain some expressions which might otherwise be misunderstood. Socrates, in the con- 

 cluding part of this Sixth Book of the Republic, says, that this kind of knowledge is "that of 

 which the Reason (\6yos) takes hold, in virtue of its power of reasoning*." Here we are plainly not 

 to understand that we arrive at First Principles by reasoning : for the very opposite is true, and 

 is here taught ; — namely, that First Principles are not what we reason to, but what we reason 



* TJ; rod SlaXeyeodal Suvdfiet. 



